Dead Man's Grip

84

A large whiskey at the hotel bar, followed by two glasses of Pinot Noir, helped calm Carly down a little, but she was still in shock. Detective Investigator Lanigan drank a small beer. He looked fine – as if he saw stuff like that accident all the time and was immune to it. Yet he seemed such a caring man. She wondered how anyone could ever get used to something as horrific as that.

Despite the woman’s rudeness to her, she felt a desperate sadness for Fernanda Revere. Lanigan told her she didn’t need to feel any pity, because this was a woman with blood on her hands, and from a brutal family living high off the spoils of violence. But Carly could not help it. Whatever her background had been, Fernanda Revere was still a human being. A mother capable of intense love for her son. No one deserved to end up the way she had.

And Carly had caused it.

The Detective Investigator told her she should not think that way. Fernanda Revere had no business getting into a vehicle in the state she was in. She didn’t have to drive away, that was her choice. She could, and should, have simply told Carly to leave. Driving away – and doing so drunk – was not a rational act.

But Carly still blamed herself. She could not help thinking, over and over, that she had caused it. That if she had not gone to the house, Fernanda Revere would still be alive. Part of her wanted to drive straight back out to the Hamptons and try to apologize to Lou Revere. Pat Lanigan nixed that one fast and hard.

They stood outside for a long time while he smoked another cigar and she smoked her way through half a pack of cigarettes. The question neither of them could answer was What happens next?

She felt utterly bewildered. How was Fernanda Revere’s husband going to react? The other members of the woman’s family? When she had boarded the plane to come here, she knew she had a difficult task ahead of her. But she had never, remotely, thought of a consequence like this. She lit another cigarette with a trembling hand.

‘I think now, Carly, you’re going to have to think pretty seriously and quickly about entering a witness protection scheme,’ Pat Lanigan said. ‘I’m going to see that you have someone guarding you all the time you’re here, but people like the Reveres have long memories and a long reach.’

‘Do you really think I’d ever be truly safe in a witness protection scheme?’

‘You can never say one hundred per cent, but it would give you your best chance.’

‘You know what it means? To move to another part of the country, just you and your child, and never see any of your family or friends again, ever. How would you like to do that?’

He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t like it too much. But if I figured I didn’t have any option, then I guess it would be better than the alternative.’

‘What – what alternative?’

He gave Carly a hard stare. ‘Exactly.’